


It Is I Who Will Surely Expire

by Tepre



Series: Prompted one-shots & drabbles [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Warning: a sad bean vaguely thinking about death, Yep. You read that right. A vase., but also about love? Go to sleep Draco you’re TIRED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 23:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17838401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tepre/pseuds/Tepre
Summary: I call this: Draco Malfoy is super awake at 3AM staring at the ceiling going over dramatic doom scenarios (while Harry drools on his chest)





	It Is I Who Will Surely Expire

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [I to ja z pewnością się wypalę](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383138) by [vicarious_den](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicarious_den/pseuds/vicarious_den)



> The schmoopy slice-of-life prompt: drarry and vase (given by drarry-with-a-side-of-harry!)

So what – what if you died in the night and the last thing you’d have touched was my great-aunt’s Ming Dynasty vase? Not the cup you drank your last evening tea out of, right before you put it in the sink and said – _Oi, I’m knackered._ Not my dinner jacket over the back of the chair, not my shirt collar when you straightened it, when you told me to come up to bed soon, when I was distracted and still trying to finish a crossword. 

Not the railing on your way up on the stairs. Not the doorpost, not the handle of the toothbrush, not even the sheets. The vase. What if it would be the vase. What if I’d taken too long to come upstairs and you’d been waiting, pacing the room, and you’d’ve come to a stop by the mantelpiece where we keep the vase between two golden candelabra.  _We,_ I say. It is I. I keep the vase. I keep the vase and tell you never to touch it, never to even breathe in its direction, what with your luck and tendency to get household items to self-combust by simply sneezing in their general vicinity. 

I can imagine how, in a moment of frustration and defiance, you’d pick it up. Throw it about between your hands. Mumble,  _Huh, what’s the big deal anyway._ Put it back on the mantel, wonder if I’d notice it had moved a quarter inch. 

And so what if that happened. What if that happened and then you’d die and then the last thing you’d’ve touched was my great-aunt’s Ming Dynasty vase. What if the last shred of that irksome firework of a mess you call your magic would’ve settled in that stupid vase and that would be all I had? What else would there be? Sure enough our bed would, at first, still smell like you. Your pillow, your shirts, your horror of a winter hat. But in time that, too, would fade. Your shoes would still remain at the door, certainly, your toothbrush still be in its glass. But I can hardly walk around on the daily with a pair of your muddy old shoes in hand, can I? And while I hold you very dear, I will not deign to parading about with a toothbrush in my pen pocket. 

No, no, it would have to be the vase. I would have to carry the vase around. I would cradle it as though it were a child or a large egg and at first no one would ask. Why would they? I would be grieving, certainly, and one does not question the grieving. Though eventually I imagine the questions would start, perhaps at a party – a year or so on – someone would ask,  _So what’s the deal with the vase?_

And I would say,  _Ah, the vase. It holds the magical spirit of my late husband. How about this weather though? Snowfall this month has been a fright!_

I would take the vase with to work. I would take it with to the loo, even: set it neatly in a corner while doing my bidding. I would take it with to meetings, would set it jumping if I thumped the table when disagreeing with someone. I would take it with to lunch, would have it with me during dinner. I imagine I’d have to settle it on your pillow, right beside me, as I’d go to sleep. 

And if I ever were to meet someone again – who’d never live up, naturally, to the mystical bar that is my dead vase of a husband – I imagine I’d take the vase on our first date, too. And they’d be understanding and lovely about it, and ask if you, a vase, wanted to order as well. Of course they’d be funny like that. And I’d say,  _Don’t be ridiculous, it is vase not a person,_ and we’d never go on a second date. 

What if the vase broke. What if the vase that is you because you died in the night then broke? What would I have then? We have no pictures, not yet. Nothing of the first time you bought me a coffee from a cart outside of the Ministry and only retroactively called it a date. Nothing of the first time we kissed. Nothing of the time you admitted, ruefully, that you’d stolen my scarf because you wanted to take home something of mine. 

Nothing of the time you took me home, and then said you were mine. 

Just stories, aren’t they. No proof, no hard evidence, no letters or notes or hearts etched in stone. Just my word that you once called the tuft of hair at the back of my neck the most darling thing you’d ever seen. Just my word that last night you dozed on my couch with your back against my chest, and held my wrist to your fingers until you felt my heartbeat – and began, utter fool that you are, humming along to its rhythm. Just my word that on some days, I am convinced it is I and not you who will surely expire at the weight of this love. This foolish, ill-thought-out, surely-this will-end-in-tears, love. 

It won’t do. It simply won’t do. A new plan will have to be devised. From here on out we shall design a new routine. After you have drunk the last of your tea, after you have set the cup in the sink – after you ran your hands over the folds of my jacket, after you tug at my collar and kiss me goodnight and tell me you come to bed soon – after you trail the railing, brush your teeth, get in bed – after you have touched every conceivable thing you could possibly touch in this damned house – 

After that, you will touch me. You will put your hands to me, to my chest, my neck. My hip, my back. My face. You will hold your fingers to the dip below my cheekbones and I, too, will hold you in return. Like this, I declare, we must fall asleep. And if you expire in the night, which I strongly suggest that you do not, then I will carry you with me in the only way I know how: from within.


End file.
